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By Ben Bussey

The late, great British auteur Ken Russell was never one for doing things by halves. As such, when he crossed the pond to give Hollywood a whirl in the early 1980s, no way was he about to leave his abrasive, in your face attitude behind. Russell’s time in the US was brief and by all accounts troubled, but the two films he made in that time – 1980’s Altered States, and the film in question here, 1984’s Crimes of Passion – stand up today among the filmmaker’s most revered and interesting work, deeply deserving of their enduring cult status.

Now, given that Crimes of Passion stars one of the most renowned blonde bombshells of the era, and deals with sexual subject matter, it’s not too hard to think of it as a forebear for the erotic thrillers Hollywood would produce in years to come: 9½ Weeks, Basic Instinct and so forth. This, however, is to overlook one key element: Russell. This is not a filmmaker who would ever be content to just present his audiences with something so safe as a simple turn-on. Indeed, Crimes of Passion is one of those movies for which the term ‘erotic’ seems inappropriate, and/or inadequate; this is a film which gets neck-deep in sleaze, as interested in the grotesque as the glamorous. Sex is the first thing on just about everyone’s mind, but as we all know, not everyone reacts to those impulses the same way: some embrace them, some repress them, some are left guilt-ridden balls of neuroses because of them, and others barely feel them at all. Crimes of Passion sets out to explore this territory in a very provocative manner, and the result is a film which is visceral, arresting, alarming, and amusing, and most definitely isn’t to all tastes.

John Laughlin is Bobby Grady, a struggling small businessman specialising in home security and surveillance. Not only is he not doing so well financially, his home life in general isn’t in the best place, his relationship with his wife Amy (Annie Potts) growing ever more tense, and devoid of physical intimacy. Anxious for extra cash, Grady accepts a private investigation job from a clothing manufacturer who suspects his new designer Joanna Crane (Kathleen Turner) of selling designs to competitors. However, on following her, Grady finds she’s wholly innocent of the charge, but has an altogether bigger secret: by night she’s a hooker, going by the name China Blue, donning a platinum blonde wig and whatever costumes might suit the fetishes of her john. Throwing herself into her work with vigour, Joanna becomes whatever they want her to be; but one particular regular, a psychotic street preacher (Anthony Perkins), develops a fixation on China Blue which threatens to become lethal.

I realise I’ve credited Ken Russell for pretty much all the film’s balls-out brashness thus far, but credit is of course also due to screenwriter Barry Sandler who dreamed up the whole thing. Given the film arrived around the time the ‘high concept’ approach was taking off in Hollywood, Crimes of Passion is not only bold in its subject matter and content, but also in terms of structure. While there is a clear linear narrative, the film overall is less interested in this than in presenting a series of character-based vignettes. For the bulk of the first act we’re presented with two entirely distinct worlds: the gaudy, neon-lit, make-up and body fluid-splattered domain of China Blue, and the white picket-fenced, beer and barbecue suburbia of the Gradys. But in both arenas, sexual frustration runs riot, the Gradys not getting nearly enough whilst China Blue overdoses nightly, clearly as desperate to fulfill a need as any of her clients. When these worlds finally collide, can real contentment be found somewhere between the two extremes?

There’s no question that the real heart of the film, and the root of its cult status – and, not for nothing, its past issues with the censors – are the China Blue sequences. There are many moments which, at face value, would seem to be all about shock value whilst doing almost nothing to advance the plot, but without which the film would no doubt feel empty and pedestrian: the ‘Miss Liberty’ intro, a faux-rape sequence, a limo backseat threesome, a brief encounter with a terminally ill senior citizen; and most notoriously the sadomasochistic cop sex scene, shot and edited in a delirious frenzy which recalls Russell’s most infamous sequence, the censored ‘rape of Christ’ from The Devils.

Most rewarding, however, are the scenes between Turner and Anthony Perkins. The Psycho actor was absolutely inspired casting as the (bogus?) Reverend Peter Shayne, and reportedly brought a great deal of himself to the part; as Sandler discusses in the extras, the role had originally been written as a bogus psychiatrist, but was amended at Perkins’ suggestion – and as Russell’s feelings about religious zealots were never a great secret, the director clearly relishes these moments. These dialogue-heavy scenes are handling beautifully, piled high with innuendo and classical references in a manner that wouldn’t sound out of place in a Russ Meyer movie, but with a heavy sense of underlying menace that takes the film into real horror territory at times.

All this being the case, it’s no accident that the Grady sequences feel a bit humdrum by comparison; but even so, there’s no denying these scenes prove a lot harder to digest. John Laughlin is well cast as a simple salt-of-the-earth blue collar guy, but he’s such an average Joe that, while it’s easy to see why he’d be drawn to Turner, it’s trickier to believe she’d be drawn to him. But the real casualty is Annie Potts. Okay, so we’re left under no illusions that husband and wife have grown apart, but Amy is presented as 100% unsympathetic: prudish, frigid, emasculating, demanding, dismissive, joyless. Their relationship is presented in such an imbalanced way that once Grady and China Blue come together (know what I mean nudge nudge), the whole thing smacks of mid-life crisis heterosexual male wish fulfillment; perhaps ironic, given screenwriter Sandler is gay.

Even so, Crimes of Passion is a fascinating and engrossing piece of work; a must-have for existing devotees of Russell, and a fine entry point for anyone hitherto unfamiliar with the director’s work. As ever, Arrow Video have done a fine job on the disc. We’ve got two cuts of the film; the original theatrical cut presented by Russell in its uncensored form, and a slightly extended director’s cut (as ever in these cases, these are moments which add a little more context, but don’t significantly change or improve the film overall). We also have the aforementioned interview with Barry Sandler, plus an equally in-depth discussion with Rick Wakeman, whose brash synth-driven score is a vital element to the film’s none more out-there, none more 80s vibe. We also have the full version of the music video featured in the film, the unforgettably screechy It’s A Lovely Life. Interestingly, Wakeman notes in his interview that the song had been recorded in a key that was too high for vocalist Maggie Bell, and with more time at their disposal they might have re-recorded it; but it’s hard to imagine the song serving the film quite so well were it not as ear-piercingly shrill and melodramatic. Once again, this is a Ken Russell film; understatement isn’t an option.

Crimes of Passion is out now on dual format DVD and Blu-ray, from Arrow Video.

By Marc Patterson

Around these parts we’re big fans of short horror films. Creating a perfect anthology of shorts is a significant challenge to any producer. There’s a real art to the curation of shorts into a masterful anthology. One needs to consider the broad theme, the mood, and what overarching story (if any) there will be. Then one needs to mix in just enough diversity to fit the fickle needs of an audience, while at the same time staying true to the vision.

It came as no surprise that our long time friends at Dread Central jumped into the ring as the latest horror fan site turned filmmaker. In fact, it made me pause and wonder what kind of splattery masterpiece our staff might create. I envisioned a horde of Fulci-esqe zombies, being beat down by a samurai wielding Asami, against a Hammer inspired backdrop, released only on limited edition VHS. Then, I winced at the thought and went back to mowing my lawn.

Regardless, whenever fans of horror can hold the reigns I expect good things to happen. Using a film submission competition, Dread Central compiled what they felt were the best in category shorts to round out their anthology, Monsterland.

With that said, let’s dive into the shorts, one-by-one, and break this disc down.

The feature opens with a framing short by Dread Central’s Andrew Kasch, and the amazing horror fiction writer John Skipp. It’s a monster apocalypse. The city skies are raining horror, and the streets have gone mad. In the midst a lone survivor stumbles into a movie theater to take refuge. He seems to have gone quite mad, and instead of hunkering down for his next battle round against the conquering beasts he grabs a bowl of popcorn and settles in for some end-times entertainment.

The first short Don’t Go Into The Water is directed by Corey Norman and felt more like an extended clip from something larger, rather than a complete film on its own. Essentially, it’s the story of a group of skinny dipping twenty-somethings go for a boozy swim and encounter an evil under the water that takes them out one, by one. While unoriginal in concept, it felt like the director had much more to say than what was actually on screen.

The Grey Matter, directed by the McCoubrey Brothers, might stand as my favorite of the lot. An office worker with a giant, bloody, hole in the back of his head – which he doesn’t seem to make much of – attempts to land a date with an attractive co-worker. In the meantime he’s getting advice from a worm-like creature. I’m not sure the film needed the added plot device, as what follows really makes the film payoff in dividends. This was a well-shot, well-written, short that could be blown up into a great feature flick.

Curiosity Kills, directed by Sander Maran, is the third short of the anthology. Shot from the childish, almost playful, perspective of a young boy, it tells the story of how the boy creates a killer rat from his father’s radioactive laboratory kit. While the short clearly had talent behind it, I found myself itching for the fast forward button. Further, it felt much too kitschy for this anthology, and didn’t fit the overall vibe of what was being presented to this point.

Hag stands out as one of the best features in this anthology. Directed by Erik Gardner this short is packed with atmosphere and great storytelling. The sickeningly beautiful visuals and the solid acting make this one short worth the upward hike it took to get to this point. The story is centered on a sleepwalking woman and her husband who is being haunted by his dreams. How the two come together amongst their marital strife makes for sharp storytelling.

Monster Man is a tepid animated short that I honestly zipped through. I’ll say no more.

The standout short that made me feel like I was watching a much higher production feature was House Call. It is undisputedly, hands down, the winner for best in class. Graham Denman has crafted a tense drama that tells the story of a desperate man, who believing that he’s turning into a vampire, pays a late night visit to his dentist. As silly as the premise seems, the acting and the ominous atmosphere make this one worth the cost of admission alone.

Jack Field’s Happy Memories is – in a word – bizarre. There was a cupcake looking puppet creature, even more twisted puppetry, and a torture sequence. I’m honestly not sure what the hell I watched, but now that someone mentioned cupcakes, I’m hungry.

The next feature, Stay at Home Dad, is directed by Andrew Kasch and John Skipp. Troma alumni Trent Haaga lends a hand in the FX department to help craft a comical and gory short about a stay at home dad who grows a giant rack to breast feed their young daughter. While the film is quite polished, it wasn’t exactly my cup of gore.

The final short, Hellyfish, is the short predominantly featured in the trailer. It’s a goofy film about a beach under siege from mutant jellyfish. Goofy and heavily doused in digital CGI this ended up being a lackluster way to wrap up what was generally a forgettable anthology.

With a title like Monsterland, I was expecting a consistent blend of macabre films, more along the lines of ABCs of Death or V/H/S. What we got instead was an amateurish mash-up, which while it contained a few bright spots, shifted heavily between themes creating an experience that was otherwise unsettling and indigestible.

My recommendation? Rent this one on streaming video. No need for a purchase as you likely won’t revisit.

Monsterland is out now on DVD and VOD from Dread Central and Ruthless Pictures.

By Nia Edwards-Behi

I can’t say I’m overly familiar with the cheerleader subgenre (can we even call it that?) of exploitation filmmaking, but to say that The Swinging Cheerleaders lives up to my expectations of what a cheerleader film would be like is almost right. Luckily, it’s got those little Jack Hill flourishes that make it a bit more interesting than just the cat-fights, dumb jocks and leering coaches.

Mesa U undergrad Kate (Jo Johnston) successfully tries out for the cheerleading squad, which she intends to profile for the radical student paper as a symbol of female oppression. However, she soon finds herself developing friendships and sympathies for the squad and the football team, including Lisa (Rosanne Katon), Andrea (Rainbeaux Smith), and not least of all team star Buck (Ron Hajek), boyfriend of stuck up cheer squad leader Mary Ann (Colleen Camp). Although she opts to drop her article in favour of friendship, much to the disdain of her hippy boyfriend Ron (Ian Sander), Kate does uncover match-rigging amongst the teaching staff, and it’s up to her and her new friends to save the reputation of the Mesa U team.

What essentially makes The Swinging Cheerleaders a cut-above what you’d expect from any other all-American college movie is the interesting sub-plots afforded to its secondary characters. Jo Johnston is great as the central role of Kate, and her rather forced radical-feminism isn’t completely ridiculed nor pushed aside as she becomes more and more part of the squad culture. But, more interesting is, for example, Rainbeaux Smith’s Andrea, whose subplot about losing her virginity (or not) could have been a film of its own. Smith is, as you’d expect, really excellent in the role and it’s a subplot that isn’t played out with quite as much titillation as you’d expect (though that’s not to say it isn’t somewhat exploitative, obviously). Likewise, Rosanne Katon’s Lisa is given some meat to chew too – she’s a student having an affair with her professor, and there’s a wonderful scene in which she’s confronted by his rightly pissed off wife, which adds a bit of very unexpected social commentary. That the black professor is also the only ‘adult’ who finally stands up to the match fixing he’s a part of is very welcome too.

The film is naturally a low-budget affair, particularly evident from what appears to be the use of stock footage for the football games themselves (although at least the costume department does a good job of matching up the uniforms). Still, it’s an impressively made film, moreso considering it was shot in just 12 days. Perhaps what’s most striking about the film is how tame its sexploitation aspects are – Hill himself describes the film as a “Disney sex comedy” in one of the special features on this release, and that’s quite accurate. All the sex-scenes fade to black, and there only seems to be an almost quota-like handful of topless scenes early on in the film. I don’t think it detracts from the film at all, although it does make for slightly imbalanced viewing once the softsploitation stuff is out of the way.

That the film ends rather abruptly is presumably evidence of its low-budget and short shoot, but at least it manages to reconcile Kate with apparent arch-girl nemesis Mary Ann in its final seconds. Okay, they might be putting aside their differences for the good of the team, but it’s something. This release of the film includes some wonderful special features, including a brand new interview with Jack Hill, as well as a recording of a Q&A with Hill, Colleen Camp and Rosanne Katon from a screening of the film. Particularly enjoyable, to me, is an archive interview with the film’s DoP Alfred Taylor, who, it turns out is, Welsh! But moreso than that, his interview provides an interesting counter-point to Hill’s – while the American is in that Corman-esque mode of well-spoken and thoughtful, Taylor’s interview is a much more industrial and mechanical insight into the filmmaking process, and the added insights into his own career are just as fascinating. It’s great to have the chance to listen to professionals talk about films like this with both approaches, and so it’s credit to have them both included here.

All in all it’s hard to exactly recommend The Swinging Cheerleaders as a ‘genre’ film, per se, other than it having cheerleaders occasionally taking their tops off in it, but if you enjoy films about young people in the 70s, then there is a lot to recommend it (not least of all the enjoyment of look at what they’re all wearing). It’s not quite got the badassery of some of Jack Hill’s other films, but even so it’s an entertaining watch that’s worth spending 90 minutes with.

The Swinging Cheerleaders is available now on dual format DVD and Blu-ray, from Arrow Video.

By Ben Bussey

Rock stars in movies have a somewhat chequered past. For every David Bowie in The Man Who Fell To Earth, there’s a Roger Daltrey in Vampirella; for every Mick Jagger in Performance, there’s a Mick Jagger in Freejack. The original wild child Iggy Pop doesn’t exactly have a spotless track record here either, given his few notable movie roles include Tank Girl and The Crow: City of Angels. Nonetheless, it’s only now, when he’s just a year shy of 70, that the iconic Stooges frontman has landed his first bona fide leading role – and it’s one which, when you read it, sounds like a promising idea.

Neo-noir Blood Orange casts the ageing rock star as, appropriately enough, an ageing rock star (this is implied at least, though given he’s fabulously wealthy, has tons of instruments and looks like Iggy fucking Pop, I don’t think there are many alternatives here). As the classic film noir format dictates, the wealthy old guy has a young trophy wife (Kacey Barnfield), a beautiful femme fatale who knows how to use what she’s got to get what she wants; and of course, the happy-ish couple soon get an unexpected visitor (Ben Lamb), in this case a figure from the wife’s past, to shatter their equilibrium.

Again, the idea of a contemporary take on film noir with Iggy Pop as the crumbling old man is not a disagreeable one at all, and clearly writer-director Toby Tobias (making his feature debut) was aiming to make a movie loaded with suspense, surprises and sex appeal. Unfortunately, Blood Orange falls well short on all counts. While it looks handsome enough and makes good use of an eye-catching desert villa in which almost the entire film is set, a combination of uninspired casting and subpar writing suck all the life out of proceedings before it even has a chance to get going.

The seemingly happy, clearly wealthy couple live a life of comfort, routine, and solitude; the old husband Bill goes out hunting in the desert or sits in his studio composing, whilst the trophy wife Isabelle seems to always be either swimming or sunbathing, only getting on the clock when she performs her old-fashioned wifely duties in the evening: cooking dinner, and sharing the bed. However, it becomes clear early on that the two have an understanding. Bill knows full well that Isabelle has designs on their handyman David (Antonio Magro); we too are well aware of this from the opening minutes in which she swims naked in front of him, and it seems her husband has no problem with her indulging her desires on the understanding that it’s all on a casual basis. However, the nature of their arrangement, and the stability of their relationship comes into question when they’re unexpectedly visited by Lucas (Ben Lamb), the son of Isabelle’s last husband. Yes, it seems our femme fatale is well-versed in being a trophy wife, and in that tradition she happily took all her last husband’s money following his death – whilst Lucas wasn’t left a penny. Naturally, Isabelle’s stepson (and, of course, ex-lover) isn’t happy about being denied the inheritance he deems rightfully his, and has come to demand his fair share. Isabelle seems eager to have Lucas out of their lives immediately, yet Bill strangely warms to the younger man, inviting him to stay on as a guest for a few days – in which time, the proverbial shit will be introduced to the proverbial fan.

While the core conceit is agreeable enough, Blood Orange takes very little time to get tedious. The plot just isn’t that surprising, and the deluge of dialogue-based scenes gets repetitive in no time at all. The key problem is, when a movie is centred on so small and ensemble, the performances need to be compelling – and they’re just not, at all. Fair play to Iggy, who seems to be enjoying himself, and with his gravelly voice and naturally sleazy demeanour he fits the part well enough; it’s the kind of role one could imagine the great Dennis Hopper playing if he were still with us. Meanwhile, Antonio Magro does fine in ostensibly the least demanding role as the largely taciturn handyman/boy-toy. But the real demands are on Ben Lamb and Kacey Barnfield, and while both of them may be pretty enough, neither of them are up to the job dramatically. Frankly, it doesn’t help that both actors are English, given the American setting and format, but the main problem is that there’s never any tangible emotional content; where there should be a hotbed of tension, both sexual and potentially murderous, all we have is – well – two people acting.

Not that Tobias does them too many favours as either director or writer. Again, the scenery is pretty enough, and the cinematography looks good, but the film runs out of ways to make it look interesting just as rapidly as the plot runs out of steam. Blood Orange would seem to have been made with a genuine affection for the classic noir format, and it might have worked had it been made with a whole lot more balls. As it is, it comes off every bit as bland, half-cocked and forgettable as that lousy DVD cover art would suggest. (And while we’re on the subject, that tagline ‘revenge has an enemy’ makes no sense whatsoever.)

Blood Orange is out on region 2 DVD on 11th July, from Metrodome.

By Nia Edwards-Behi

We’re big fans of Chris Crow’s work here at Brutal as Hell, following Devil’s Bridge, Panic Button and The Darkest Day. With the arrival of his latest feature, I don’t think that’s going to change. It’s an unconventional film, which I’m certain will frustrate some viewers, but for me it’s Crow’s most skillful film to date.

The Lighthouse takes its inspiration from a real event in Welsh maritime history, namely the Smalls Island tragedy of 1801. Now, I think it’s best to know as little as possible about what happened, but if you’re already familiar with the story anyway it doesn’t matter too much: the real events offer only a skeleton to the story, any details folkloric at best, and so Crow is allowed the space to breathe life into these characters in his own way. There are only two: Thomas Griffith (Mark Lewis Jones) and Thomas Howell (Michael Jibson), two men tasked with taking over keeper duties at Smalls, a wooden lighthouse on a tiny rock of an island, 25 miles away from the coast of Pembrokeshire. It’s clear from the outset that these men don’t get on, but they plough on with their duties anyway. Their routine plods on, but the weather takes a turn for the worse. A storm rages around them, trapping them in the tiny lighthouse for weeks longer than they have provision for, as no replacement or rescue can come anywhere near them. Tensions flare between the two men, and the longer they remain trapped, the madder they become. Then tragedy strikes, and the real madness begins.

The Lighthouse is quite different to Crow’s previous films, but there are certainly thematic overtones here which ring familiar. There’s a toxic sort of masculinity that’s central to the pain Griffiths and Howells are suffering, entirely unrelated to their ordeal in the lighthouse, and it’s the sort of macho posturing that drives characters in Devil’s Bridge too. And there’s definitely a critical eye cast on the role of religion in society (and, indeed, these two themes are interlinked) as well as in the personal lives of men. The close-quarters of Panic Button’s doomed flight are here shrunk again, as is the cast of players. It’s certainly pleasing to see the development of form and ideas in a filmmaker’s body of work, and it’s evident in The Lighthouse.

As you might imagine, a film that spends 90 minutes in close-quarters with only two characters needs some very good performances at its core in order to be remotely watchable. Luckily, Jones and Jibson both do wonderful work here. I’ve already sung Jones’ praises once this year, for his towering performance in The Passing, and here again he is an imposing figure. Quite different to The Passing’s Stanley, though, Thomas Griffith is no silent sentinel, instead he is, appropriately, a tempest of aggression, machismo, and pain. We first see him in a boxing ring, and that brewing potential for violence stays throughout the film. Conversely, Jibson’s Thomas Howell is a timid mess of a man, clinging to religious belief as the only way to alleviate the guilt he feels for a mistake he’s made in the past. It’s this core clash of faith and secularity that drives the film – this odd couple clashes in ways that we might expect from such a set-up, but the film is at its finest when exploring the much deeper nature of their individual guilt. The stand-out scene for me is when the men, in their drink, finally reveal the causes of their pain to each other, and what begins as sadness and grief soon explodes in anger. Jones in particular is absolutely searing here, delivering some of the lines which, I believe, are key to understanding the film as whole.

The film is a huge technical achievement, not only in terms of Crow’s ability to direct the film in an interesting way in such small confines, but in the entire production’s recreation of the lighthouse itself. Built in a warehouse in Cardiff, the film’s set is a testament to some real craftsmanship behind the scenes – as is the post-production and VFX work. Many of Crow’s frequent collaborators are present and correct behind the scenes – including producer David Lloyd, cinematographer Alex Metcalfe and composter Mark Rutherford – and it’s fair to say it’s a team that works very well together.

Naturally, sustaining attention in a film like this is quite difficult, and while the film’s pace is slow, I didn’t really find my focus drifting. This is very much a chamber piece, so if you’re not fond of slow character building and visual storytelling, then this might not be one for you. Otherwise, The Lighthouse is very much a film worth your time. It’s not only an achievement of low-budget filmmaking, it’s also a damn sight more interesting than many other psychological thrillers you’ll set your eyes on this year.

The Lighthouse will be released in the UK on July 8th 2016, through Soda Pictures.

The Lighthouse – Official International Trailer 1 from Dogs Of Annwn on Vimeo.

By Ben Bussey

There are many approaches a no-budget horror movie can take in order to stand apart from the crowd, but surely one of the most effective is to come up with the silliest premise imaginable. So many cash-strapped productions shoot themselves in the foot from the off by trying to play it too straight, and/or make something that aspires to big budget horror standards, when those behind the camera clearly have neither the means nor the know-how to measure up. Happily, director Stephen Tramontana and co hold no illusions about making the next mainstream breakthrough indie horror. Instead, they went and made the most knowingly dumb horror movie they could, with very little money and a monster made out of rainbow-coloured paper.

It all begins when a hapless father walks into a party supplies store and, naturally, completely forgets what his wife has sent him there to buy for their son’s birthday – except, that is, for a piñata. In fact, he winds up buying three of the things so their son can personally choose which one he wants to bash the shit out of. Unfortunately, one of this candy-filled trio is not like the others: it’s alive, possessed with a vengeful, murderous spirit. Happily this doesn’t show its face during the young ‘uns birthday celebrations; but when the college-age daughter Lindsey (Eliza-Jane Morris) is left home alone for the weekend and has a few friends over, it’s time for that paper mule to show his kick.

Tramontana pitches the film as what happened when a bunch of friends ran out of 1-star rated no budget horror movies to watch on Netflix, and decided to make their own. This very much comes across watching Killer Piñata. In-keeping with most contemporary microbudget DV-shot horror, it’s very basic aesthetically, has a small central cast, and plays out almost entirely in a single location, with laughably unconvincing special FX. But of course, this is all largely the point. Naturally no one’s going to sit down to watch a movie about a possessed piñata who poops poisonous candy and think they’re about to see the next Martyrs. It’s abundantly clear throughout that no one involved is taking any of it too seriously, and from start to finish there are plenty of nods to the camera (literally in at least one instance) that reassure the audience that the filmmakers are entirely aware that the movie they’re making is – if you’ll pardon the phrase – utterly retarded. Thankfully, though, it isn’t all nudge-wink self-conscious silliness with no bona fide humour. The script from Tramontana and Megan McManus boasts some fairly sharp, witty dialogue at points – though, this being a no-budget movie, some of this loses its sharpness thanks to the fairly flat sound mix.

Still, the whole enterprise is so unassuming and good-humoured that it’s easy to forgive its many failings, even though it does commit a few of what I would consider cardinal sins of no-budget schlock horror: for one thing, it outstays its welcome just a little at a full 90 minutes in length; it might have benefited from slightly tighter editing, and a little less relationship-based dialogue. We also have a sex scene in which both participants are clearly still clothed from the waist down; these always grate on me, as I just don’t see the point of including a sex scene if you’re not going to really go for it. Still, in this instance the overall comedy value of the scene makes it entirely worthwhile.

As far as absurdist horror comedies featuring small puppet monsters, multi-coloured vomit and dick jokes go, Killer Piñata doesn’t come close to topping Dustin Mills’ Easter Casket; but then, I’m pretty certain this is one movie that was never intended to be the best anything. Ultimately, I can give no higher recommendation than this: should you find it on a Netflix search, you’re in the mood for something dumb and you’ve got nothing better to do, this is definitely one to watch.

Killer Piñata is available now via Amazon, Vimeo, and the Killer Piñata site.

By Tristan Bishop

Reshoots have been in the news recently, with a couple of forthcoming blockbusters apparently having footage reshoot to ‘lighten’ the dark tone (presumably in panicked response to the critical drubbing of Batman Vs Superman), but reshoots are nothing new, as this 2 disc package from Arrow Video attests.

Blood Bath is perhaps one of the lesser-seen films in legendary exploitation director Jack Hill’s oeuvre (we won’t count those Mexican Boris Karloff films that he apparently shot extra footage for), with a reputation as an incoherent cut & paste job. Is this a fair summation? Well, kind of. But, as this set makes clear, we never got Jack Hill’s ‘proper’ version of the film in the first place.

Let me take a deep breath and try to explain. We’ll start with the indefatigable (and always budget-conscious) producer Roger Corman, who, by the early sixties was already a dab hand at buying up Eastern European fantasy films (which often featured special effects way beyond the scope of the budgets Corman was working with), re-editing them, getting young directors to shoot new footage and passing the results off as American originals to unsuspecting audiences: see films such as Queen Of Blood, Magic Voyage Of Sinbad and Battle Beyond The Sun (the latter being especially worthy of merit, for not only being an early assignment for Francis Ford Coppola, but also for containing what can only be described as penis and vagina monsters, which one can only assume went over the heads of a US audience in 1962!)

During an Eastern European trip (presumably to try and source some more footage), Corman found himself chatting to some Yugoslav filmmakers who were interested in collaborating – They would take care of the production as long as Corman could throw some money in (reportedly around $20,000 dollars) and supply some actors for name value. In came William Campbell and Patrick Magee (the latter straight out of Francis Coppola’s underrated Dementia 13, also for Corman), and Operation Titian was born.

Long unavailable, Operation Titian is first up on this collection. Although Corman originally shelved it for being ‘unreleaseable’, it’s really not a bad little film. Coming off as an Eastern European twist on the German krimi, Operation Titian is a spy thriller of sorts; involving all sorts of characters out to get hold of a rare painting by, you guessed it, Titian. Despite some fairly awful line reading by some of the local actors speaking English, it’s a passable afternoon’s comfort viewing – extremely dated and occasionally flagging in pace, but saved by some lovely location work (Yugoslavia looks like a great place for a holiday), an arrestingly shot and heavily atmospheric intro sequence, and Magee as a badass Italian gangster, who steals the show, cutting off a stripper’s bra with his knife, and beating up some drunken sailors who attempt to retaliate. It’s unlikely to be anyone’s favourite film, but fans of early sixties romps will have a lot of fun with this one.

Having shelved the film for a couple of years, Corman had the film slightly re-edited and released to television in 1965 as Portrait In Terror, which is the second film in the collection. To be honest, there isn’t a massive amount of difference between the two films, save some cutting down of the more tourist-y footage from Project Titian (one of that film’s important scenes is based around a real fishing tournament, and this has been completely excised from the Portrait version) and a couple of moments where things have been slightly extended – with stand-ins! I can see how this may have played better at the time but, personally, I found a good deal of innocent charm in the travelogue footage, so Project Titian was a more satisfying experience for me.

So now we come to Blood Bath. As I mentioned at the start of this review, Jack Hill’s Blood Bath was never actually finished. Hill was bought in to ‘save’ the film, and started to use footage from Titian to make the tale of a crazed artist who murders his models – a massive nod to producer Corman’s classic Bucket Of Blood (1959). However, the project was abandoned after around 45 minutes of footage was shot by Hill, and he instead went on to direct the classic Spider Baby. The project was then picked up by Stephanie Rothman, who had been working on a variety of different projects for Corman in a variety of different roles, and ended up shooting another 30 minutes of footage for Blood Bath. However, tastes were changing by the mid-sixties, and instead of basing the footage around William Campbell’s mad artist, Blood Bath was now becoming a vampire film!

As it stands, Blood Bath actually contains very little footage from Project Titian. Notably the incredible opening sequence remains, which then segues into Rothman’s vampire footage. Most of Hill’s footage, I would guess, concerns the coffee shop antics of a group of beatnik artists (among them an extremely young, bare-chested Sid Haig), where the amusing dialogue about quantum theory remains the highlight of the film. Understandably, as a whole it’s a bit of a mess; personally I didn’t quite understand where the vampire stuff fitted in with the rest of the plot, I can only assume Campbell’s character is supposed to be able to become a vampire, who looks like a normal man with things, but, well, nothing like Campbell. There are more flashes of great material to be had including some fairly nasty murder sequences, and a cracking ending which must surely have been an influence on Bill Lustig’s Maniac (1980), so Blood Bath stands out as the best film in the collection despite the many flaws.

Track Of The Vampire, which rounds things out, is basically the TV version of Blood Bath; except, rather than a cut-down version as you might expect, presents us with an extended version instead. After all, Blood Bath runs barely over an hour, so 15 extra minutes have been added in to pad it out to acceptable broadcast length. Out of this 15 minutes, a whole 8 minutes is taken up by a scene where the vampire chases a random woman. 8 whole minutes of your life. Needless to say this version is inessential viewing, although fascinating as some of the footage seems to have been restored from Portrait in Terror.

The real charm on the disc, and what really pulls it all together, however, is Tim Lucas’ ‘Visual Essay’ on the bizarre history of the films and their productions. The feature runs longer than Blood Bath itself, and goes into fascinating detail about the various shoots and differences between the versions. Lucas has been obsessed by the films since realising as a child that Portrait In Terror and Track Of The Vampire shared footage, and his passion and research shine through – in fact, after watching the documentary, I realised much of the info on Wikipedia about the film is incorrect.

There are also on camera interviews with Sid Haig and Jack Hill, but these are fairly brief (less than ten minutes) and pale into insignificance alongside Lucas’s labour of love, and are mostly interesting for the fact that neither man seems to have much love for Rothman!

All in all, this is a wonderful example of a second rate film (or, more correctly, films), made essential viewing by the way Arrow has put this package together: a fascinating history lesson and insight into the heyday of exploitation film-making, with all the films restored into picture quality most likely not far off their original look (save the expected wear-and-tear on some of the elements). If you have any interest in Corman, Hill, or American horror films of the sixties, this is a treat you shouldn’t miss.

Blood Bath is out now on Blu-ray from Arrow Video.

By Nia Edwards-Behi

In 2014 I saw the short film Baskin while at Celluloid Screams in Sheffield. My thoughts on that film were that I liked what I saw, but that it felt far too much like a scene from something bigger. Delight, then, when I heard that director Can Evrenol was indeed working on a feature version of his short. In vaguest summary, both films concern a squadron of police officers who find themselves stumbling upon hell itself in an abandoned mansion. Tried as I might to see Evrenol’s debut feature on a big screen, opportunity did not knock, and having now watched the film at home I really regret that. It’s a visual delight, that’s for sure, and I’m not sure my small screen did it justice. It’s immensely satisfying to know that a film like Baskin is getting a limited cinema run in the UK, though, so maybe my chance is still to come.

The film establishes its troupe of police officers very well, their amiable machismo just on the right side of making me hate them. I mean, I still doubt very much I’d want to be friends with any of these poor souls, but they are not quite so misogynistically detestable that I’m willing their painful deaths from scene one. No, instead, they’re just a blokey blokes in a blokey job, and that shows immensely in the way they interact with each other. If two of the men stand out, it’s rookie Arda (Gorkem Kasal) and his uncle and boss, Remzi (Ergun Kuyucu). We find Arda as our centrepoint in the otherwise relatively straightforward story when he recalls at length an experience he had as a child (depicted, in part, as the film’s opening scene), only to discover his uncle has had similar eerie experiences. When they find themselves in the midst of the hellish mansion, this background proves vital to the way events play out.

And boy, do they play out. For the bulk of its duration, Baskin is a sort of metaphysical drama, but once things kick off, they really kick off. There’s almost a bit too much going on in this strange hellscape, making it a bit hard to quite distinguish just what gross thing is going on. The film, in this regard, also wasn’t quite what I expected. I think what I was assuming I was getting was an ordeal film, with most of the action taking place in the house, and while that is part of it, it’s not done in so conventional a way as what I expected. Now, that’s a good thing! After the initial blitzkrieg of bloodied deviancy, our protagonists are captured and everything calms down which makes the violence that follows more effectively distressing than the bombardment that comes directly beforehand.

Comparisons have already been made between Evrenol’s Baskin(s) and the gore films of Lucio Fulci. It’s certainly evident in the dramatic gore itself, but Fulci’s influence might also be seen in the mythological elements of the film, most obviously in the gateway to Hell aspect of the narrative (there’s a great scene with a spider, too, which amusingly makes an otherwise stoic policeman scream). That’s not the only classic horror influence on Baskin, which successfully manages to use bright red and blue lighting à la Suspiria in a way that doesn’t feel messy or hamfisted. The only homage that didn’t work for me was the use of a very familiar musical cue during a scene of eye gouging. Though not inappropriate, its use was just jarring and immediately took me out of the intense scene that was unfolding.

I’m not sure if the very ending of the film is a nice use of a trope or simply a bit predictable. Given everything that’s come before it, though, it’s difficult to think of any other sensible way to end the film. The start of the film establishes such an excellent sense of relative mundanity that the chaos that follows is even more intense, and there’s no easy way to wrap that up. Evrenol has assembled a great cast and put on screen a wonderful vision of horror. Although the ‘horrible happenings in a house’ setup has been done plenty, Evrenol brings enough of his own imagination to proceedings to make it entirely entertaining and watchable. If you do get a chance to see the film on a big screen, take it, as it’s one that ought be seen big and seen loud.

Baskin comes to UK cinemas and VOD on Friday 15th July 2016, from Vertigo Films.

By Ben Bussey

It’s never ideal to open a review on a disclaimer, but here goes anyway: I don’t know Pride and Prejudice at all. Naturally I’ve always been well aware of it – I’m British, and the image of a sopping wet Colin Firth is irrevocably burned into our national consciousness – but I didn’t watch the much-loved 1990s TV adaptation, nor the 2005 Keira Knightley movie; and, not for nothing, I’ve never read Jane Austen’s novel. If you were to ask me why, I wouldn’t be able to give an answer that didn’t come off as pig-ignorant; it was never on the curriculum for any of my English classes at school, and I never had any personal interest in it because (women in corsets notwithstanding) it didn’t seem to have anything I was interested in. But if you add the walking dead and martial arts swordplay to the mix, surely that’s enough to hook in an ignoramus like me, right?

Well – this time seven years ago, that might have been true. It’s a little hard to believe, but it’s only been that long since Seth Grahame-Smith’s horror-tinged reworking of Austen was first published in 2009 (and no, in case you’re wondering, I never read that either). The concept seemed audacious at the time, captured the imagination of readers both within and without of horror fandom, and in no short order spawned a wave of imitators. Hollywood took note too, with all manner of modernised rejigs of time-honoured tales hitting the screen, and Grahame-Smith himself soon graduated from classic literature remix-master to high-profile screenwriter and producer. And yet, for some time it looked unlikely that the novel that started it all, which was of course optioned for a movie almost immediately, would ever make the screen; a succession of directors, screenwriters and lead actresses were linked to the project only to drop off one by one, until finally Burr Steers produced the version that hit cinemas to little aplomb this past Valentine’s Day, and is now coming to home entertainment.

Within the first few minutes, it’s clear why Pride & Prejudice & Zombies took so long to get made. It seems like a one-joke premise that will get tedious in no short order… and it is. And what makes this movie ever more baffling is that, given this is a property which would seem to hinge on being ridiculous and out there, it’s is a strangely sedate and pedestrian affair, with the horror and action elements heavily dialed down so as to avoid going above a PG-13 rating. Not that this made any difference in the UK, as it still wound up a 15; but given how much a 15 certificate movie can get away with nowadays, this is one of the mildest we’ve seen in a dog’s age.

For the reasons I’ve already given, I can’t verify how much of the original Pride & Prejudice storyline remains, but I’m informed by reliable sources (i.e. my missus, who’s read both the original Austen and Grahame-Smith books) that the essential beats of both remain, but the movie has amped up the zombie element significantly, adding a military conflict thread which was not present in the 2009 novel. What I find bewildering is that, even with this embellishment, the living dead element is still very much a subplot, and in all honesty a distraction from the main narrative thread of high society drama and will-they/won’t-they romance – which, I cannot deny, is quite compelling. (Wow, maybe that Austen bird really did know how to tell a story…)

However, I suspect it would have all been considerably more compelling in the hands of a different cast and director. It was a very curious decision to take on this material, but then treat it to all intents and purposes as a non-parodic costume drama. Maybe Steers had hoped this might bring out the underlying humour, much as how Airplane! became a comedy classic at least in part thanks to the casting of serious actors. Sadly, this approach just doesn’t work here. It also doesn’t help that Steers seems very ill-at-ease directing action; all the key players have clearly undergone some serious martial arts training for the film, and are required to perform much of this whilst delivering Austen’s dialogue, which by all rights should have resulted in some hugely impressive and laugh-out-loud hilarious moments. But the scenes in question fall utterly flat; the fights are poorly shot and edited, and it’s all played far too straight to raise more than a passing smirk.

There are some enjoyable supporting turns from Matt Smith, Sally Phillips, Charles Dance and Lena Heady, but even someone as ignorant of Austen as myself knows that it all hinges on the casting of Elizabeth and Darcy. That’s where Pride & Prejudice & Zombies really hits the floor face-down, as Lily James and Sam Riley are just bland in the lead roles, with very little chemistry. It’s bad enough that the zombies are sidelined, the gore is almost non-existent, and the action scenes are poorly realised – but when Pride & Prejudice & Zombies proves to contain not even a pinch of simmering sexual tension, surely that renders the whole thing utterly pointless.

Pride & Prejudice & Zombies is available for digital download on 20th June, then Blu-ray, DVD and VOD on 27th June, from Lionsgate.

By Dustin Hall

Back in 2013 I posted a review for The Conjuring, and in many ways I feel like I could just copy and paste that same review here and be done with it. That shouldn’t necessarily be taken as a criticism. The Conjuring was a very successful horror film, a rarity these last few years, and the large numbers of fans of that film will also find much to like here. James Wan’s horror productions can be very hit and miss, the popular Insidious series being crammed full of cheese and melodrama. Conjuring 2, while not being bereft of cheese, manages to keep it to a minimum, and continues to stand out from its peers for having clever scares mixed with strong characters.

This installment opens with a side-trip to Amityville, where we see the resolution of the Warrens’s investigation in the house, through the eyes of Lorraine Warren during an out of body experience. The visual translation of this is great, and we can really see how Wan, and his budget, have grown since the original Insidious and its trek through a very minimalistic afterlife. As Lorraine relives the infamous DeFeo killings, we get a glimpse of a new specter, a ghostly nun, whose presence will continue to haunt the Warrens, and ultimately lead then to their next case.

After this really clever opening, the Warren family takes a back seat for the first act of the film, as the story focuses solely on the family at the center of the Enfield Haunting, and particularly on young Janet Hodgson. As with The Conjuring, James Wan takes deliberate care to match the events of the case to the pictures and descriptions of the events from witnesses. All of this adds a nice flourish to a film that claims to be ‘based on a true story’. While the build-up of the haunting itself is nothing new, both in the use of decades old ghost tropes and the fact that Enfield has already had several movies based on it, Wan’s direction remains solid, with great visuals, a good use of audience expectations to create suspense, and knowing how to time a jump scare. He’s really gotten good at finding new ways of making people yelp with the same stupid gags.

And again, what would be normally a very standard ghost story is saved by the Warrens, in particular Lorraine Warren. Lorraine is the heart of the film, and definitely the main character, as the strain placed upon her by her psychic visions is brought to life by Vera Farmiga. Her relationship with her husband Ed, played by Patrick Wilson, plays a major part in the events of the tale, and allows the pair to grow beyond the standard, generic ghost hunting characters that litter most films. The Conjuring 2 also makes use of the skepticism surrounding the haunting, largely believed to be a hoax perpetrated by a family in need of new housing and revenue from selling their TV-movie rights, and acknowledging it as a way to create tension and distrust between the characters. Of course, the audience has been right there with the family since the beginning of the haunting, and one has to wonder if an opportunity wasn’t missed to make the audience guess as to the veracity of the events they had just witnessed, and add a deeper layer of mystery to the film.

The weaknesses in the film remain the same as with Wan’s other outings. There’s a bit of cheese, some hammy lines, and some faults in the film’s internal logic. The film portrays the possession of young Janet as not simply a ghost trying to take over a home, but as the master plan of a demon, possibly from Amityville, creating a long and elaborate series of events meant to… stab Ed Warren with a stick? As with most haunting films, the motivations of our villainous creature don’t make a lot of sense, and require the entity to forget for most of the film that it can lift human beings off the ground, and toss things across the room with lethal force. The visual representation of the ghost, the Crooked Man, is also ridiculously bad. While the Demon Nun looks adequately creepy and sinister, the Crooked Man is a CG abomination, a cartoony cross between Jack Skellington and a goomba from the Super Mario Bros. movie who removes any real sense of dread from whatever scene he’s in. That design should have stayed at home in direct-to-video horror films.

Failings aside, The Conjuring 2 is a really entertaining ride, and those who enjoyed the first one won’t be disappointed. It may not scare old-school horror fans or appease those who want more blood and guts, but it’s a solid haunted house flick that’ll probably have casual audiences poopin’ in their pampers. If nothing else, James Wan continues to showcase his growing visual flare, adding some new scare scenarios and visual tricks to his impressive resume, while adding a newly discovered maturity and appreciation for character moments that were missing from his previous works.

By Ben Bussey

Hello again, BAH readers. Given that we’ve been offline the best part of a week (another story for another time), there’s nothing I’d love more than to welcome you back with word on an upcoming new release that I know is going to blow your minds. Alas, I’ll have to disappoint you. Unless, that is, you’re one of those rare souls who feels that the main problem with the I Spit On Your Grave remake and its sequels was that they were all a little too well made and inventive, boasted characters and plot developments that were just too believable, and never really milked the comedy value out of that whole rape-revenge angle. In which case, quids in: this one’s going to be right up your alley. As for the rest of us…

Yes, Even Lambs Have Teeth is essentially a rape revenge comedy. I’m not sure if that’s what writer-director Terry Miles had intended it to be, and I get the impression that most parties involved probably thought they were making something considerably harsher, bolder and edgier than the film proves to be. Sadly, this is one of the most inept, lifeless attempts at a neo-exploitation movie that I’ve seen in this year or any other. It’s one thing to be utterly tasteless; under the right conditions, that can be a true advantage. However, a lack of taste should never go hand-in-hand with a lack of wit, and/or a lack of balls.

Sloane (Kirsten Prout) and Katie (Tiera Skovbye) are a couple of typical small town high school graduate besties with a typically girly plan for their summer: they want to go shopping in New York City. In order to save the money they need for that endeavour, they’ve signed up to work at a remote organic farm in the country for a month. After being driven out to the bus stop by Katie’s somewhat over-protective uncle Jason (Michael Karl Richards), who also happens to be a police detective – gee, wonder if that will have any bearing on things later on? – the girls meet a couple of nice-looking local boys at a coffee shop, who offer them a ride up to the farm. Though cautious Katie has her doubts, impetuous Sloane likes to carpe that diem, and so the girls accept the ride.

No prizes for guessing what happens next: the girls wind up drugged, then wake to find themselves stripped to their underwear and chained up in metal shipping containers out in the middle of nowhere. Yep, them good ol’ boys have abducted our heroines for sex slavery, and multiple rapes ensue for both of them. But when the chance for escape arises they don’t hesitate, nor do they hold back in fighting for their lives – and before you can say “They Call Her One Eye,” the prey becomes the predator.

Don’t be misled by that Thriller: A Cruel Picture reference, though. While the premise might not be too far removed, Even Lambs Have Teeth is worlds apart in terms of content. Let’s face it, the raison d’etre of any rape-revenge exploitation movie is that it must be unflinching and unapologetic in its brutality, and that simply isn’t the case here at all. I won’t deny that I’ve grown tired of rape as a horror trope in recent years, so on the one hand I don’t mind that Even Lambs Have Teeth avoids showing the heinous act itself in detail; but at the same time, films of this nature hinge on showing the protagonists suffer in the earlier scenes, in order to really fire the audience up for the revenge that follows, and Even Lambs Have Teeth completely fails to do this.

Worse yet, the revenge itself is also painfully misjudged in its tone. The violent retribution sequences are played for overt comedy value, and hold back from anything but minimal gore, the action cutting away a split-second before impact in just about every murder scene. This might have been okay if the film was otherwise shot and edited in an interesting way, but no; it’s that same old painfully bland and clean DTV aesthetic, completely devoid of the dirt and sleaze that the genre requires. I expect the main defence that would be made against this is that the film is striving to tell an interesting, character-driven story. Guess what; it fails miserably. Whether it’s the script and direction or the actors themselves, there’s not a single performance in the movie that works, every frame of it coming off utterly forced and unnatural.

Still, misguided attempts at character-based drama are one thing – but when all’s said and done, what exactly is the point of a rape-revenge movie that neither shows the rape nor the revenge? Skirting over those elements leaves the viewer asking why they even bothered making the damn thing, and just who they made it for. Yes, of course rape is an unpleasant subject matter, so it’s entirely understandable that some filmmakers and actors might feel uncomfortable taking it on. But if a cast and crew are not willing to push both their audience and themselves beyond their comfort zone, then they really have no business trying to make exploitation.

Even Lambs Have Teeth might catch some uninitiated supermarket bottom-shelf shoppers unawares (remember that debacle around The Hospital?*), but anyone with even a perfunctory knowledge of the genre will find it way too tame to be of interest; and I can’t imagine anyone else would take even a passing interest in the film. An ill-conceived, asinine waste of time in every respect, this is one lamb that should have been slaughtered at birth.

Even Lambs Have Teeth is out on region 2 DVD on 20th June, from Matchbox Films.

*Not that I’m comparing these movies to one another; say what you want about The Hospital, but it definitely didn’t shy away from the real exploitation elements.